i have both .ive ab them back and forth for hours.the sound the same.htc 1 is 3 times as loud.and has no crackle in certian iems.s4 amp issue.the one has louder backround hiss.neither of them sound good tbh

i have both .ive ab them back and forth for hours.the sound the same.htc 1 is 3 times as loud.and has no crackle in certian iems.s4 amp issue.the one has louder backround hiss.neither of them sound good tbh

Not sure what your on about! Apart from lower volume output (no issue for me with my Klipsch X10i) the test figures also confirm good ??

Update 11 April: We've identified an issue with our testing procedure that caused lower readings for dynamic range, noise level and stereo crosstalk on some smartphones. We've since rectified it and updated the scores to reflect the actual performance on the affected devices.

And here go the results so you can see for yourselves.

Test

Frequency response

Noise level

Dynamic range

THD

IMD + Noise

Stereo crosstalk

Samsung Galaxy S4

+0.03, -0.08

-95.9

93.2

0.0030

0.0092

-96.4

Samsung Galaxy S4 (headphones attached)

+0.03, -0.08

-96.0

93.3

0.0031

0.089

-95.5

HTC One

+0.11, -0.20

-82.7

82.7

0.0023

0.026

-80.9

HTC One (headphones attached)

+0.02, -0.32

-82.4

82.3

0.0045

0.057

-68.3

Sony Xperia Z

+0.11, -0.10

-81.9

82.1

0.043

0.041

-81.3

Sony Xperia Z (headphones attached)

+0.62, -0.09

-81.7

81.5

0.204

0.249

-56.4

HTC Butterfly

+0.13, -0.29

-82.5

82.3

0.0090

0.022

-80.8

HTC Butterfly (headphones attached)

+0.16, -0.24

-82.3

82.1

0.0094

0.042

-59.7

Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III

+0.03, -0.05

-90.3

90.3

0.012

0.018

-92.6

Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III (headphones attached)

+0.11, -0.04

-90.2

90.2

0.0092

0.090

-53.1

Test

Frequency response

Noise level

Dynamic range

THD

IMD + Noise

Stereo crosstalk

Apple iPhone 5

+0.06, -0.51

-91.3

91.3

0.0015

0.0093

-76.5

Apple iPhone 5 (headphones attached)

+0.00, -0.26

-90.6

90.6

0.0035

0.111

-56.2

Apple iPhone 4S

+0.02, -0.11

-91.2

91.2

0.0020

0.012

-93.0

Apple iPhone 4S (headphones attached)

+0.05, -0.10

-91.3

91.3

0.0068

0.071

-66.7

Apple iPhone 4

+0.01, -0.07

-90.1

90.0

0.0068

0.012

-89.6

Apple iPhone 4 (headphones attached)

+0.01, -0.07

-90.4

90.4

0.0036

0.092

-68.4

As I found myself, the S3 was weak with headphones being noticeably worse that an iPhone where the S4 is as good as a 4S and better than an iP5 from technical data. To me both the S4 & iphone sound good but maybe not to dedicated source quality. The only recent dedicated player I had was a Sony X series which had awful background hiss with my SE535's leading me to purchase a high quality 75Ohm attenuator from Japan to tolerate using it!

I've worked my way through many Android devices and this is the first one that I like as much as the iPhone for Sound Quality.

The "April 11" GSMarena update is deceiving. They changed the way the tested phones, but only have tested GS4 (Qualcomm) and HTC One using the new method (which shows better results.) Further, the HTC One results in the chart you posted are the "old method" results.

Apples to apples, the S4 and One results are very close. And both have 8-10db worse noise than Wolfson and i-devices.

It would be nice if they would take the time to retest the popular phones with the new methodology, but they don't seem inclined to. Heck, they can't even get the same One test results in the S4 review as they show in the One review.

For reasons unknown the objective measurements of the noise floor of Android /WP smartphones do not tell half of the truth about the audible hiss, crackles, pops, ticks and all that plethora of spurious noises that more often than not plague the low level sounds of the aforementioned devices.

In that background blackness realm iPhones still literally trump the competition. By a long shot.

Yeah I have debated waiting to see what the next iPhone would be like, and who knows I might sell whatever I get for the next iphone. But between the S4 and the One is what I am considering now. How do the htc one and s4 sound without using an external dac/amp or just an amp? And how about with them? Does the S4 have the same problems as the S3 with dac/amp compatibility? How is the One in dac/amp compatibility?